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[Byrthnoth]

Optimal setup for group 2 merits on dnc? Also duo/trio strat for cuelebre?

Cuelebre - RDM + RDM, RDM + BLM, RDM+SCH, etc

DNC - It depends what you value and use your dancer for. Dancer is weird, because the optimal combination is splitting shit up among categories rather than just max-ing 2. If I could, I'd 5/5 all of them of course. I'd do:
2/5 No Foot Rise - Because you're attempting to Presto every time it's up, 2 and 5 No Foot Rise are kinda the only two options. If you do 2, save it for when you miss a Step and use it so you maintain your Reverse Flourish rotation. If you do 5, it's just saving you 20 TP and giving you more TP while you run around. I'd vote for 2/5.
1/5 Fan Dance - It is hard to justify not putting at least one merit into this JA. I've been doing a lot of soloing on DNC recently in Abyssea, and I haven't come across a situation where I'd want more than 1/5 yet. There are a lot of situations where I don't even use it.
2~5/5 Closed Position - 3 Acc/Eva per merit level. You won't need the Acc, so it's pretty much just 3 Evasion per merit level. There will be times when you're solo and that extra 15 Evasion makes the difference between being able to TP in an Evasion/Haste hybrid set and having to go full Evasion.
2~5/5 Saber Dance - Awesome DD job ability. I recently took mine back to level 1 from level 5, and I'm thinking about re-meritting it. The testing I've done indicates that the difference between 1/5 and 5/5 is likely 5% Double Attack on average (+20% Double Attack vs. +15% Double Attack). I'm going to re-merit it and test it again at 5/5, but with N>500 @5/5 and N>1000@1/5, those are my results. If you don't DD on Dancer (aka, use Saber Dance regularly), then you might as well stick to 1 or 2/5 and dump the rest into evasion via Closed Position.

So 2 NFR, 1 Fan, 2-5/5 Closed, 2-5/5 Saber. It comes down to whether you'd rather have 9 Evasion or 4% Double Attack average (with Saber Dance up). I'd put off the Closed Position/Saber Dance decision until you've figured out how you play DNC at 85.

[Nightfyre]

G2 is pretty variable.

5/5 Closed Position
2/5 NFR
2/5 Fan Dance
1/5 Saber Dance

is my setup. 2/5 NFR covers any missed steps thanks to Presto, Closed Position for soloing and when I take hate, Saber Dance just to have it (I WS and cancel it anyway), unlocked Fan Dance for soloing and threw the extra merit in there because I didn't have anywhere better to put it. Overlapping timer is kind of nice though.

5/5 NFR
3/5 Closed Position
1/5 Fan Dance
1/5 Saber Dance

is what a friend of mine has. 5/5 NFR is just for extra TP before the start of events or running between NMs.

Could also do a setup focusing on Closed Position and Fan Dance if you're solo-oriented. There's other setups too, just put merits in whatever will benefit you most.

[Vincento]

Rdm + Whm is also an alternative for Cuelebre, I wouldn't be surprised if a Rdm can solo it by now.

[Avarice]

What's a general strategy for Hadhayosh? Info on otherwiki is a mess, and I just wanna know what to look out for.

[Kidnoftle]

Rdm + Whm is also an alternative for Cuelebre, I wouldn't be surprised if a Rdm can solo it by now.

Rdm could solo it at 80. You could probably do it now sans chain drain for the last 25% though.

[Yugl]

Reasonable price for Manannananannanannanana Necklace? I'm buying, so don't buffer it.

[Byrthnoth]

So, I tried to solo Ovni yesterday on DNC. He used his second Invincible at 81%, so I admitted defeat and asked in LS for help. Killed, not even an Augur Body. Anyway, I'm interested in owning his face for the belt, but I need to do more damage and I don't have an account to dual box. There are a few things I can think of (start with >100TP and 5 Finishing, re-cap Saber Dance, eat better attack food, use Temp items, potentially improve my gear) but I feel like those improvements won't take me far enough.

1) 81% is kind of a no-brainer, but what % would he have to be at during his second Invincible for me to not admit defeat?
2) Is Invincible actually +10% damage each time, so 10 times and he becomes immune, or is it less than that?
3) If I check the log, Invincible seems to be used about every 2.5-3.5 minutes. Does something trigger it, or is it just random? Could someone compare the interval with their own log?
4) Does anyone see something in my TP gear I could swap to do more damage with more/the same Evasion?
Eva Kila+1/STP Fusetto +1/____/Charis Feather
Charis+2/Charis/Suppa/Brutal
Aurore/Dusk+1/Heed/Rajas
Boxer's/Speed/Charis+2/Ballerines
Atma: GH/RR
Food: (wasn't expecting him) Carbonara
Sub: /NIN

With that on, he misses me >>50% of the time, I have 32 Subtle Blow, and I pretty much only take damage from his variety of AoE TP moves. A second Evasion Kila +1 would totally floor his hit rate on me, I think, but it'd be worse DPS and TP gain than my Fusetto +1. Still, may turn out better in the long run because I'd be casting shadows less often.

5) Strategy improvements?
Right now I don't use Fan Dance (his only threatening moves are magical) and ride Haste Samba as much as I can. Last time I'll admit that I forgot to use Temp items, but my selection was crappy anyway. So next time I go back into it with all the TP-gaining and HP gaining temp items (won't have to spend as much TP Curing myself), Champion/Stalwart's Gambir/Tonics, Dusty Wing, Lucid Wings, etc then I can probably mini-zerg him down at the start. I tried PK -> Evisceration, but PK's damage was atrocious enough that Darkness would have to Mirror 100% of the time for it to be better than just using two Eviscerations.

Re: Yugl, if you buy them for 50k or less and check a lot of bazaars (at least on Lakshmi) you'd be done in under a week.

[Yugl]

Ok, I'm going to stop buying them for 80k from this dude then. Thanks.

[Mithrazz]

How useful is NIN85 at endgame now? Are they useful as tanks in Abyssea?

[Pendulum]

Whoever does the most damage is the tank which is typically a monk. NIN is useful for finding the various "!!" weaknesses on NMs with the range of weapons they can use.

[FailureMidgard]

Whoever does the most damage is the tank which is typically your best DD, nin included. NIN is useful for finding the various "!!" weaknesses on NMs with the range of weapons they can use.

Fixed.

[Nightfyre]

Where exactly does NIN sit in the overall hierarchy of DDs these days anyway? Assume access to Empyrean weaponskills, good gear, etc.

[Kidnoftle]

It's probably a fairly small % difference between the main DDs atm. If you were thinking about lvling it just because you like the job then I'd say go for it, it preforms well in all situations and has a nice smattering of capabilities from red procs to blue procs as well as actual DD/Tanking capabilities.

[aspekt]

It's probably a fairly small % difference between the main DDs atm. If you were thinking about lvling it just because you like the job then I'd say go for it, it preforms well in all situations and has a nice smattering of capabilities from red procs to blue procs as well as actual DD/Tanking capabilities.

agree, but i got to say if all dd have the same "tier" of gears, most likely MNK and NIN will come out on top.(in abyssea, with proper atma)

and NIN does make a good tank in abyssea, we use MNK because of the HP pool, with over 3000 HP with ease, its hard to get one shotted with the right support.

[Kidnoftle]

Do Aisha Ichi and Dia/Bio stack?

[chazzyphizzle]

gonna say yes

[nitsuj]

Anyone taken the time to make a good Garland of Bliss set? It's confusing on otherwiki... seems to imply that "MND INT STR and MAB all affect it... but not really clear on which would be best for each slot?

I assume it can miss, as well, so *some* accuracy is important.

Suggestions?

ONE set on ffxiah.. and he went 100% MAB http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/100366 . Not sure if anyone has messed around with this. Doing magian trials, so obviously I have time to burn to figure this out (Garland killing blows)

[TheDirtyHobo]

Where exactly does NIN sit in the overall hierarchy of DDs these days anyway? Assume access to Empyrean weaponskills, good gear, etc.

MNK NIN WAR (no particular order) > SAM > THF >>>>>>>> Everything Else

Assuming Empyrean weapon, perfect gear and Atmas, full buffs, etc. Just my opinions, though. Also, RNG might squeeze in somewhere with Jishu's Radiance being 3hit crit mod, but I haven't seen too much testing on it to see how good it is.

[Kyte]

Anyone taken the time to make a good Garland of Bliss set? It's confusing on otherwiki... seems to imply that "MND INT STR and MAB all affect it... but not really clear on which would be best for each slot?

I assume it can miss, as well, so *some* accuracy is important.

Suggestions?

ONE set on ffxiah.. and he went 100% MAB http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/100366 . Not sure if anyone has messed around with this. Doing magian trials, so obviously I have time to burn to figure this out (Garland killing blows)

It's an elemental WS, so it follows that equation- so no, it can't miss, but it can be resisted. Assuming the wiki is correct, it likely uses dINT to determine base damage.


Looking at the set, I can see immediate improvements that could be made. For one, take out the Brutal Earring- elemental WS cannot DA.

Hands--> I believe Yigit would be best.
Feet--> Probably also Yigit
Head--> Yigit would be better, although I'd have to look around more to see if it's best.

Something like this: http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/187283 EDIT: Just go with what Night said, forgot there was considerably better and not too hard to get gear out now that is SMN-equipable.

The accuracy rings are obviously silly since it can't miss, so replace those. INT rings would be best; a Karka ring would be best, but you can get some pretty nice augmented diamond rings in Abyssea-Vunkerl. If you have a Tamas ring for whatever reason, use that.

With a 40% MND mod, 1 INT~3 MND. MAB is harder to compare since it depends on how much base damage you have and how much MAB you have.

[Nightfyre]

MNK NIN WAR (no particular order) > SAM > THF >>>>>>>> Everything Else

Assuming Empyrean weapon, perfect gear and Atmas, full buffs, etc. Just my opinions, though. Also, RNG might squeeze in somewhere with Jishu's Radiance being 3hit crit mod, but I haven't seen too much testing on it to see how good it is.

Can't imagine RNG terribly high even with Jishnu's Radiance, doesn't benefit from haste... and tbh DNC would outpace THF effortlessly.

Anyway, thanks all for the input. Have NIN feet rotting in storage, considering putting them to use since I have a decent amount of the non-JSE for it and Kannagi is reasonably accessible.

Anyone taken the time to make a good Garland of Bliss set? It's confusing on otherwiki... seems to imply that "MND INT STR and MAB all affect it... but not really clear on which would be best for each slot?

I assume it can miss, as well, so *some* accuracy is important.

Suggestions?

ONE set on ffxiah.. and he went 100% MAB http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/100366 . Not sure if anyone has messed around with this. Doing magian trials, so obviously I have time to burn to figure this out (Garland killing blows)

Just a guess, but I'd say MAB > INT > MND > STR. Can throw together a rough guess at a set later, heading out for a bit.